Plug-in Prius Battery Upgrade

I get that range with or without the range extender battery!!?

 

sounds like it is not working.

 

What do you mean by " everything is alright?
After driving with the range extender starting at 220 volts and using up all EV miles what is the range extender voltage and what is the on-board battery voltage? If both are the same and above 198 volts you need to charge and repeat till the PIP learns it has a bigger battery.
As it learns the charging time will get longer.
Edit: You may have to cause a "reboot" by disconnecting the 12 volt battery to get it "learning"
Does the range extender temperature rise at all?

 

The gets a bit warm to the touch. Of course if things works well, I will introduce the force air cooling.

 

If it is getting warm, it is WORKING! MORE experiments needed to get the PIP to " recognize it! Since you started with both packs fully charged (at 220 volts), I'd wager that after driving till EV mode is no longer "available" the pack voltage is about 208 and The PIP has used the number of coulombs that was available before adding the range extender, in other words the PIP doesn't know it has a bigger battery. Hopefully the PIP doesn't have it's battery size " hard coded" in it's firmware but uses a "learning" process to estimate it's battery size. If it turns out to be hard coded firmware modification or some type of "spoofing" will be needed. I'll suggest some "experiments"
1. Fully charge with range extender connected. Disconnect range extender and drive till no EV mode (pack should be about 196 volts). Discharge unconnected range extender to the measured pack voltage using a 220 volt heater or light bulbs as "load". Reconnect range extender. Charge car with range extender connected. Measure pack voltage if it's 220 drive and observe range, hopefully it's doubled. If voltage is not near 220 disconnect 12 volt battery for a few minutes, then reconnect and charge again. If the charge after reboot is of normal length it's good news and the next drive should show increased range, however if the charge is much shorter that's bad news and the battery size is likely "hard coded".

 

FWIW The Plug in Supply "range extender", that I mentioned (for sale on Ebay) in a previous post may be the one being offered by Julio on another thread in this forum, does not connect where Oscar has connected, is not charged by the on board charger and it uses a very different cell chemistry with lower cell voltage. The PIS range extender connects it's battery to the PIP outside the HV battery enclosure through a contact-or controlled by the driver. The PIS system includes a BMS to support the added pack (2P64s of 15AH LIFEPO4 cells) and an independent charger for the range extender. With the PIS "hack" the PIP's computers don't know any thing about the range extender, they think the car is going downhill. Because of the very low amount of heat generated in it's range extender, PIS doesn't need a TMS. I recall reading somewhere that later versions of the PIS system could use the on board charger, Oscar's experience suggest otherwise.

 

julio's sounds good, but there have been horror stories as well. best to know your way around.

 

It would appear that there is/are more than 1 kind of "range extender" in Gen 1 PIPs sourced from Pl ug In Supply.
The one offered by Julio uses a separate charger, was originally sold to be installed in a non plug in Gen 3 Prius.
While the kit talked about here: adding extra 4kw battery for more than double plug in miles | Page 7 | PriusChat Does in fact use the PIP's on-board charging facilities, and the EV estimate on the HSI does not indicate the effect of the range extender, which would indicate that the range extender is connected "downstream" of the OEM pack's current sensor.

 

i have to doubt the veracity of jim335. he never showed pics like he said he would. i can only think it was rob at pis, trying to drum up business for a potential kit, but he never got any takers.

 

Bisco,
I had no idea you were into "conspiracy theories"!

 

i followed that whole thread at the time. the guy kept promising pics, then finally claimed he sold the kit. who knows? never heard of another one.

at least oscar has pics of the batteries on his kitchen floor.

 

This may be true in Merry Ol'England where they have a 35* range in temps.
Tell this to my pack when it's 105* in the shade,, or -5* in the sun.

 

Attempting to represent extremes as normal for the majority... not cool. Leaving the expectation as an unknown makes that worse. I'm calling greenwash.

 

I'm calling this reply 'Hard to Understand'. (wth, over?)

The majority of the Midwest experiences this sort of weather,, and yes,,, not cool,,, in the summer!

john, pay attention here,, we are talking about Oscar's Tesla battery module hack not having any TMS at all.

We are not talking about the Prime's or PiP's totally sufficient TMS.
It may require driver input at times, but it mostly gets the job done, some of the time..... and only time will tell.

 

[QUOTE="Ben@Boston, wow lots of negatives on this post! Toyota keeps adding more and more batteries to the prius to prove that it can be done.

First it was regular prius then,
Plug in prius doing 15 ev mode then,
Plug in prius prime doing 25 ev mode next,
Plug in prius prime doing 50 ev mode.

Toyota keeps adding more weight and battery and prius is becoming more and more economical.

I did mine. Nice Oscar youtube.

 

toyota has not made a 50 mile ev prius

 

saw your youtube, nothing there

 

The unit-of-measure for a vehicle designed in Japan is metric. In this case, kilometers.

For gen-1 Prius PHV, that target was 20 km.

For gen-2 Prius PHV, that target was 40 km.

For gen-3 Prius PHV... knowing that affordable & reliable has been higher priorities than range... would put it at 60 km.

That's 37 miles.

 

Think about the product-line as a whole. RAV4 PHV using a 13 kWh capacity battery-pack would be ideal to share with the next Prius PHV. That cost-reduction through volume benefit is very important.

 

wait - hasn't Toyota already said they're partnering w/ Chinese battery suppliers - just so they will be less battery constrained? (conundrum being the China Market is huge, but China requires manufacturers to make electric cars) Didn't Toyota recently state (at least part of the reason) their small hybrid pack size lets them make higher volumes of efficient cars - rather than if they had to put larger packs in their lineup?
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